Hey! It’s been a while since we did a Music Monday!
They made a whole movie of this plotline. Far more recently, this and this happened.
Remember: a drivers license is evidence that you can legally drive a vehicle, and evidence of your identity. It is not and never has been evidence of citizenship. Most of us cannot prove our citizenship with documents we carry daily.
The old Oak Forest Hospital is slated for demolition and site redevelopment now. At one time it was a tuberculosis sanitarium. That’s when my grandmother was a patient there. She was one of the first patients who was actually cured of tuberculosis, or TB. The drugs which killed the bacteria left her deaf.
Tuberculosis and measles are both diseases that can travel quite a long way. That’s why patients with those diseases are placed on airborne precautions. You probably know there’s currently a measles outbreak impacting 13 states as I write — probably more by morning. That’s serious, make no mistake. But Tuberculosis is also a serious and much more common problem.
Every year near the end of March is World Tuberculosis Day. Normally the CDC has a massive release of data on that day. At this time I do not know whether the CDC will release that data. My local health district has already quietly released their data, which they normally hold until World Tuberculosis Day. My state has not. It is worth noting that locally, cases are up over where they were 2 years ago (but down from last year). This data is vital to me in a professional capacity to determine how much risk my patients and staff face from TB in the community.
Believe it or not there is a vaccine for TB! It was developed a couple of decades before we had a cure. We don’t generally use it here in the United States because it’s not as effective as would be desirable, we have a relatively low prevalence, and it interferes with the cheap “skin test” you may remember having done at some point in your life. But many of our nurses from places like South Korea or the Philippines have had this vaccine.
Now about curing TB. It’s not fun. Remember from the beginning of my post that the first treatments we had often had horrible life changing side effects. However, it was better than the alternative: dying. Unfortunately TB has developed resistance to many drugs over the years. It is important to treat TB even if it’s latent — meaning it’s not causing you to be very sick right now. Treatment can often involve multiple, very strong antibiotics, every day for months. In some cases, the local health department might call every day to make sure you took it.
And this brings me to another important point. People without insurance — or with lousy insurance — might not be able to afford those antibiotics. When that happens, they are not only a walking petri dish for incubating drug resistant strains of the disease, they are sharing their germs with everyone around them.
Also, tuberculosis does not care about your immigration status.
Places where people are crowded together — like jails and immigration detention centers — are a perfect place for one TB case to turn into dozens. Are you wondering how many undocumented immigrants are going to seek medical care for their TB or measles symptoms?
When the COVID Public Health Emergency ended, some immigration policies also ended. I’ve written multiple times about immigration both legal and undocumented in the past, with a focus on the broken system and why none of the “reform” ideas being floated are good ideas. But since Mr. Biden has a long rich history of disfiguring reform initiatives, he’s probably exactly where he wants to be.
Here’s one of my early efforts from 2007, where I look at the issues and the stakeholders.
By 2009, we had crazy machines to replace undocumented farm workers.
In 2014 we noticed the Children’s Crusade Redux at the border.
Oh, let’s not forget Chris Christie in 2015 wanting FedEx style tracking of visa holders.
in 2018 I brought you commentary on the Dreamers and a comprehensive post on the topic that I think still largely stands true. Real reform still must include a radical lifting of immigration caps, hiring a lot of staff to process people who want to be here legally, simplifying forms so someone with a grade school education and little knowledge of English can fill them out, and severe penalties for employers that don’t follow the law. Spoiler alert, we won’t be getting any of that.
What we will get? Another heaping helping of Joe Biden as Democratic nominee for President whether we like it or not.
What an interesting intersection today’s post is: Neil Diamond is retiring, the State of the Union is tomorrow, and immigration “reform” is on most political minds.
So I thought I’d highlight a few things going forward. Today I am talking about permanent immigrants, not people on temporary work or tourist visas. I can’t see addressing that anytime soon.
So a real immigration reform bill would include raising the caps, enforcing existing employment law, and simplifying the system so it’s simply easier to do it right. We must be very careful with the idea of merit based systems. Of course, we aren’t going to get any such thing. In fact, it’s possible we get nothing at all.
Hi everyone. Sorry there was no music yesterday. Hopefully I can make it up to you with some delicious shorties.
On Phone Security: Do you like being able do to things like buy things or pay bills using your phone? Government insistence on back doors and custom hacking software will make your phone vulnerable to Bad Guys who can rob you blind through your phone. Oh, and the cops don’t even think there’s any information to get off that phone in San Bernardino. It’s just a fishing expedition designed to make you less secure.
Some random food items so I don’t lose track of them: eating relatively healthy at a fast food place; healthy eating at chain restaurants; and cheap but healthy cooking.
Unequal Returns: Poor kids who go to college don’t get nearly the income boost that middle and upper class kids get with a college education.
DWB: Or, cell phone cameras continue to throw light on misconduct.
Just because it’s Super Tuesday: One Hillary link and one Trump link.
Oh, and one more thing: If you want to actually fix the immigration system — rather than slapping some patches on it — you have to address the fact that by law, there is an annual ceiling of 675,000 legal immigrants. There are roughly 12,000,000 undocumented (or unlawful, if you prefer) immigrants. Even if all of them were legal immigrants, it would take over 17 years to get them all normalized status under the current law. People coming to this nation — legally, as refugees, whatever — now are taking years to get to court at all. That’s part of the reason there are undocumented immigrants in the first place. Telling them to go to the back of the line is a joke, because the line would be over 17 years long. Any immigration “reform” that doesn’t address the ceiling and doesn’t address employers who exploit cheap labor from undocumented workers (who will often gladly work for illegally low wages in unsafe environments because it’s still better than where they came from) is nothing more than window dressing.
Happy Tuesday.
“I don’t mean people are packages, so let’s not be ridiculous,” the New Jersey governor told an interviewer on Fox News Sunday who pointed out that foreigners do not have labels on their wrists.
“This is once again a situation where the private sector laps us in the government with the use of technology,” Christie said. “We should bring in the folks from FedEx to use the technology to be able to do it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
I’m not entirely sure how he intends to “use the technology” without something that seems very much like barcoding visitors. Maybe mandatory checkins with local authorities?
In Closing: this might be worth watching, but nobody better get in my way on the 21st. Got that??
So the latest “brilliant idea” from the Presidential candidate Chris Christie is to track immigrants as if they were Fed-Ex packages. Claiming that 40% of illegal immigrants are here on expired visas, his idea is to keep track of where they are, “And then when your time is up … however long your visa is, then we go get you and tap you on the shoulder and say ‘Excuse me, thanks for coming, time to go.’” Yes, real quote. Also, no specifics on how that would work. It’s not exactly dignified to slap a bar-code on them when they arrive at the airport. Hey, make sure the hotel scans that for you regularly, mmkay?
Now allow me to point out that — even if we take Mr. Christie’s often-quoted statistic at face value, this will catch at most 2/5 of illegal immigrants at some point in the future. It won’t do anything about the other 3/5. Hmm, interesting fraction that, since many illegal immigrants work in jobs that routinely violate labor laws, or are in outright slavery.
Back to the idea of somehow tracking every non-American who shows up at an port of entry, including airports and border crossings. Maybe give them some kind of emblem to pin on their jackets?? Now, if the Religious Right wing of the Republican base actually knows the tenets of their faith, they should have a specific Bible verse coming to mind.
Anybody who really wants to talk about the illegal immigration problem needs to address the fact that it can take many many years to get normal permanent status and/or become a citizen. There are only a limited number of permanent visas and green cards issued each year, and most immigrants must maintain that status for 5 years before applying to become a citizen. Dealing with current immigrants under these quotas is much like attempting to drink a gallon of milk using a teaspoon.
But hey, it sure sounds cool to track them like some package you’ve ordered.
In closing: boat; no, she can’t; irreproducible results; what recovery?; the plague.
Sorry for the tab dump here. I’m in the progress of migrating RSS readers and all is madness.
Gee, I wonder why that would be!: These big events tend to inspire copycats. Well maybe if we didn’t glorify the asshats who do this stuff….
On Bad Trade Deals: Um, yeah, we need to keep paying attention.
It’s All Greek to Me: No?
On the Redditpocalypse: I was beginning to think the place was too big anyway. I have yet to evaluate alternatives.
On with the body count: Our police violence problem has gained international attention.
YSK: Ponzi and pyramid schemes.
Meanwhile: How dare people — particularly young people — want jobs that pay a living wage! Particularly in these 10 states…
An interesting view: On consent.
Lemmings: Well, I suppose inasmuch as illegal immigrants are by definition here illegally, sure. But by that standard, lots of people have “bad intent.”
Finally: Via my old and dear friend Rachel, a misplaced dominant seventh chord was once all it took to land you in jail. Listen for yourself near the bottom.
So it turns out that Boehner knows that fixing the roads and bridges before they fall apart altogether is important. He thinks he can find the money for that out of tax “reform” that is somehow or another not raising taxes at all.
In Closing: FBI; shirt; Takei; and the sad truth about illegal immigration.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Johnny Cash:
In Closing: moving; a few diet items; I’m not sure how this works (except Obama is black and therefore any race issues are his fault?); as long as we’re on the topic of the President, a couple immigration items; life chances; it’s good to be king CEO; not so good to be an average worker; even worse to be in prison; but hey at least if you’re in prison you’re alive.